Global warming on trial: Global warming goes on trial at 8.00 am this Wednesday, 21 March 2018, in Court 8 on the 19th floor of the Federal Building at 450 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco. Court 8 is the largest of the courtrooms in the Federal District Court of Northern California. They’re clearly expecting a crowd. The 8 am start, rather than the usual 10 am, is because the judge in the case is an early bird. Continue Reading →

Tomorrow’s Grim, Green, Global Masters

7th March 2018

Greens hate individual freedom and private property. They dream of a centralised, unelected global government, financed by taxes on developed nations and controlled by all the tentacles of the UN. No longer is real pollution of our environment the main Green concern. The key slogan of the Green religion is “sustainable development,” with them defining what is sustainable. Continue Reading →

Pacific Climate Change Conference 2018 21-23 February, Wellington. The 2nd Pacific Climate Change Conference will bring together a broad range of voices on climate change to discuss the recent research, plus the impacts to policy as well as public implications.

Polar bears are the cute poster-beasties of climate change. I’m sure the cute factor would quickly fade as those pearly-whites and claws closed in from a few metres away, but as cuddly toys polar bears are top-drawer. Continue Reading →

Well-disinformed comments here prompt a repost from a valuable source of good sense: Matt Ridley. His blog post, Whatever happened to global warming? was published in the Wall Street Journal in September, 2014. Its lessons remain eminently digestible and they deserve to bat for another spell—metaphors that are indeed well mixed. Continue Reading →

Just two weeks ago Dr James Renwick published an article in The Spinoff provocatively titled Slaying the zombie memes in that ‘climate sceptic’ column on Stuff. Dr Doug Edmeades had posed some perfectly sensible questions to the science behind the claims of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW), yet Dr Renwick apparently gave them little thought, slating him as presenting “zombie memes”—using a shallow warmster meme himself to denigrate his colleague. It’s amazing what he does next. Continue Reading →

2017 was a year of extreme weather, especially in the USA with Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria devastating swathes of the country, while western states suffered from a severe drought and consequent bushfires. The year ended with a record-breaking “deep freeze”.

New Zealand also had its weather travails, with NIWA reporting a “marine heatwave”, bringing rainfall records, accompanied by heavy flooding, to parts of the South Island.

Some elements of the media hold the view that such events are a product of Climate Change. They contend that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has already become “dangerous”.

For a long time the common name for the greatest challenge of our generation was “global warming” — in fact, it must have been twenty years or more. We all knew what it was and groaned every time the boring old subject was raised.

Then, maybe a decade or so back, just when people were starting to notice that warming had hit some speed restriction, the name seemed to morph into “climate change”. This was a new name and suddenly climate change was the bogyman. Then, of course, it was all on for young and old — every darn piece of weather was being caused by man-made “climate change”. Continue Reading →

True science — I mean confessions

The Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) for each IPCC report is written by bureaucrats and politicians for people who cannot follow scientific language. It is not authoritative, frequently misrepresents the science and is always written before the longer scientific report is finished. If the SPM is challenged, one must resort to the WG1 report, written by scientists. What do the scientists say?

We present here, from the AR4 (2007) (pdf, 106.9 MB) and AR5 (2013) (pdf, 375 MB) reports, a selection of passages that speak against extremist climate change forecasts widely circulated by activists. They are not much referred to by warmsters but they should be widely known, especially by those spending our hard-earned taxes. Dip into these facts — discover the real science and prepare to be amazed by the discord between the claims of the warmsters and the sober consideration of scientists (emphasis added). Continue Reading →

A non-trivial audience

I’ll try to post this once a month or so, keep you in touch with the real size of the CCG’s audience.

Hail, O audience!

UPDATE 6 FEB

These traffic figures have suddenly reduced themselves, and I think I know why. Only the number of visits has changed, the number of unique visitors has changed only minutely. For example, peak visits on 18 December is now 2232, when two weeks ago it was over 7000, but visitors number 743, when previously they were almost the same at 739. I changed a setting a few days ago that now counts every visitor with over 50 visits in a day as a robot; so it eliminates their visits. I would guess one robot could easily account for up to 1000 page requests, as there are over 1000 posts, so losing 5000 visits might mean there were about five unidentified robots. Most robots are identified by a regularly updated database but it’s not infallible. The change means that more than 50 genuine page requests in a day by a real visitor aren’t counted in the statistics, but it’s the best we can do. I had to let you know of the change, and anyway daily average visits of 1400 is pretty impressive (over 42,000 visits a month). So thanks! You make the striving worthwhile.

Or will they?

• Guest post •

— by Gary Kerkin

Not long after the Trump administration appointed Scott Pruitt to head the EPA, Pruitt suggested a Red Team/Blue Team debate on climate science—a format in which two teams debate the pros and cons of a proposition. The Blue Team would be composed of scientists supporting the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis; the Red Team would be made up of scientists who skeptical of the hypothesis. Continue Reading →

The GWPF gives us a blockbusting new report from Mikko Paunio, an adjunct professor in general epidemiology at the University of Helsinki. Professor Paunio blasts the Lancet for a “gross distortion” of public health science. What follows is the Executive Summary (emphasis added). You can get the full paper here (pdf, 30 pp, 986 KB). – RT

The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, recently published two long commissioned reports, timed to coincide with 23rd Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the third UN Environment Assembly. The journal’s aim was to boost climate change mitigation and enhance a ‘Pollution-free World’ initiative in the name of public health. This paper gives examples of the biased, misleading and false health-based arguments that are made in these reports. Continue Reading →

The story of dangerous anthropogenic global warming is painted as a delicate jigsaw. Diverse enigmatic elements mysteriously combine through uncaring human activity to destroy the planet, preventing which is called “the greatest challenge of our generation.”

At root, however, the story is simple; it’s painted as complex to baffle us. At root, our constant carbon dioxide emissions increasingly heat the atmosphere. But we observe that carbon dioxide does not keep heating the atmosphere, which is demonstrably not warming very much and, debunking the warmsters story, this is the coldest period in the last 65 million years, and for the last 420,000 years, natural temperature changes controlled CO2 levels. There has never been runaway warming.

Who does it better?

Can we really improve on nature? Is it remotely possible for us to reproduce her elegant mysteries or achieve her breathtaking biological efficiencies, or is our greatest work a crude parody?

Dr Kelli Archie, climate change lecturer, VUW.

In an article in yesterday’s Herald, Resistance is fertile in battle for our climate, (a Dr Who reference — hilarious!) Dr Kelli Archie (right, evincing a fine enthusiasm in the face of an imminent global calamity) makes a case for reducing our meat intake for the sake of climate control. The concept that anthropogenic climate change might be dangerous is sheer madness, so I recommend the term ‘climate control’ when the focus is humanity’s culpability, to emphasize its foolishness. Continue Reading →

Greenpeace helped out James “Climate Change” Shaw the other day with a press release of impeccable logic pointing out that tackling climate change is incompatible with looking for more oil. Impeccable, that is, on their assumptions. In truth, their reasoning is of the worst falsified kind, twisted beyond reality, there being no evidence that our emissions of carbon dioxide do anything but good for humanity and the planet. Continue Reading →

Here’s a letter I sent yesterday in our name to the Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw.

It opens what could be a lengthy campaign. We will ask the top climate-anxious institutions in New Zealand the same thing: what is the proof of a dangerous human influence on global warming? Continue Reading →

Oh, I’m no denier, I just have a few questions. But first…

I’ve been called a “climate denier” hundreds of times because I lie about global warming, ignore unfavourable reports, obscure the truth and all this is funded by big oil. For over ten years I’ve apparently bamboozled the public by introducing doubt where no doubt exists, stirring up needless arguments over climate science that’s already settled, I’ve delayed crucial emissions policies and killed millions of people by allowing global warming, so I certainly deserve prison after all this and maybe a death sentence as well. Continue Reading →

The Prime Minister says combating climate change will be the defining characteristic of her term of office. Ms Ardern sees this question as being more urgent than all other economic, environmental and social issues – even the alleviation of child poverty, to which she is headily committed. How did this topic gain this ascendancy? Continue Reading →

The Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry says of carbon dioxide (CO2) that it is “a colourless, odourless gas.” It’s non-toxic except in very high concentrations, it’s essential food for all terrestrial and marine plants and therefore makes all animal life possible, and its level in our blood regulates breathing. From it, plants create the oxygen that we and animals need to survive and its carbon component provides the basis of our anatomy and physiology. Continue Reading →

CLOUDS – water vapour (think steam); non-polluting, non-toxic, form on micro-particles, make fantastic animals and shapes

• Guest post •

— by John McLean

TV One managed to plumb new intellectual depths last Friday when it tried to associate photo-chemical smog and micro-particle emissions in urban areas with carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It frequently displayed images of real air pollution.Continue Reading →

• Guest post •

— by John McLean

TV One’s great “climate change” campaign continued last Thursday, featuring a medley of nonsense about “extreme events” and New Zealand’s future scorching temperatures before sounding off about Donald Trump’s foolishness in withdrawing the USA from the Paris Climate Agreement. As we have come to expect, TVNZ was wrong on each point.Continue Reading →

Ipsos MORI say that they’ve found a steady decline on concern about climate change since 2005, from 82% to 60%, something they describe as a “worrying trend”. —Climate Scepticism, 1 November 2017

Just in time for Polar Bear Week, the Global Warming Policy Foundation has published a new resource for cooling the polar bear spin. A paper by zoologist Dr Susan Crockford sets out the truth about the long-term improvement in the conservation status of polar bears. As global leaders meet in Bonn for COP23 (6–17 November 2017), it’s time to celebrate the proven resilience of polar bears to their ever-changing Arctic environment. —Global Warming Policy Foundation, 6 November 2017

When it comes to climate change, there are worlds apart between Germany’s aspiring Jamaica Coalition partners. It is all about coal and it is not certain the divide can be bridged. No other subject in the exploratory talks about a possible ‘Jamaica’ coalition government in Berlin is as controversial as the subject of climate protection. If they do not catch up quickly, ‘Jamaica’ itself will be threatened by “dark doldrums”. And then all bets are off. —Augsburger Allgemeine, 4 November 2017

• Guest post •

— by John McLean

Beyond a joke — this must stop!

It’s Tuesday evening and TV One isn’t improving. This time it claims that climate refugees will be leaving Kiribati due to rising seas, caused by man-made climate change, and heading to New Zealand where, surprisingly, the new government is preparing to issue ‘climate refugee’ visas.Continue Reading →

• Guest post •

— by John McLean

Vunidogoloa, Fiji

TV One is emphasising climate change this week and demonstrating just how bad the media can be. It’s not clear if it’s incompetent journalists or incompetent climate advisors but it makes a mockery of the idea that TV One tells the whole story accurately and honestly.Continue Reading →

There are important things to say about the NZ Royal Society’s deceptive and alarmist report on human health impacts from climate change, released last month.

The eight-page report sets out the strongest available case for New Zealanders to be fearful of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW). But we don’t find the case at all strong or at all scary – so we hope everybody will read and understand it. Continue Reading →

The data say one thing

[CORRECTION 1 Nov 2017 1945 NZDT: The original post used annual data. Figures for the standard error at 19 and 20 years have been removed until I can redo them using monthly data. The trends are unaffected. RT]

[CORRECTION 2 Nov 2017 1605 NZDT: There have been numerous changes to align this post with a Coalition submission to the Royal Society. There are minor changes, references to error margins and to the 20-year chart have been binned and the title changed to “… not warmed for 19 years”. RT]

For the national temperature record, the 7SS, NIWA have collected the data, checked it, adjusted it, approved it and published it on their website, so they can scarcely now argue with it. But, on the other hand, it’s totally at odds with what they say in public. Note to MSM:this ought to be front-page news.

Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball

We will see an increasing number of people changing their positions on global warming as the global warming ship sinks. It will take various forms including; articles appearing that subtly shift previously held positions; reevaluation of data; or finding new evidence that allows a change and perhaps worst of all those who say they knew the science was wrong all along but did not consider it important to speak out; dredging up a sentence or two from their writings that they claim showed they knew. The level of inventiveness will astonish as rats desert the sinking ship. Continue Reading →

Dr Russel Norman, ex-MP, will be tried for interfering with the operation of the Amazon Warrior in an oil exploration protest off the east coast of the North Island. Judge Nevin Dawson set the trial date for April next year. Serves Norman right, of course, after Dawson J last June offered diversion to the three defendants and they refused it. Tough. Continue Reading →

GWPF newsletter – republished by permissionThe GWPF newsletter is essential for keeping up with developments in climate change. This edition reveals that by rejecting agreements that would cripple its electric power supply, Australia supports a wave of realism that is transforming climate policy around the world. We learn about Norwegian voters’ rejection of the Greens’ campaign to abandon oil and gas exploration and phase out the Norwegian oil industry in 15 years, and hear yet more evidence that climate fluctuations over the last 100 years invalidate the current alarm. — RT

Borrowed from WUWT – republished with gratitudeIssuing directives “banning” perfectly legal products, like petrol-powered vehicles, is economically, socially and politically unwise. Politicians of a dictatorial bent are well advised to avoid it and leave such decisions to the instincts of a free market. Our friend Dr Mike Kelly tells us it takes, on average, about forty years for the infrastructure to support a new technology to thoroughly permeate through a country. For example, petrol stations, repair workshops, electricity distribution, airports, and so on. If all-electric cars become compulsory before charging stations are available, there will be trouble, as Eric Worrall discusses in relation to hurricanes. — RT

Imagine Escaping a Hurricane in a Tesla

Image from Tesla’s websiteGuest essay by Eric Worrall

First I want to make it clear that I think Tesla responded to Hurricane Irma with exemplary good faith, sacrificing their future profits to send drivers of cheaper Tesla models a free range upgrade, to help them escape Hurricane Irma. But the urgent Florida hurricane evacuation may have inadvertently highlighted an unexpected and potentially catastrophic risk associated with government policies which seek to switch drivers to electric vehicles.Continue Reading →

GWPF newsletter – republished by permissionThe GWPF newsletter is compulsory reading for those wanting to understand climate change. The latest version of WordPress provides an insanely simple way to keep the illustrations intact and I hope you read it with delight. — RT

GWPF newsletter – republished by permissionThe GWPF newsletter is a must-read for anyone wanting an objective analysis of climate change news. The illustrations have been removed and longer extracts shortened but links to the full posts have been retained. I hope you peruse it with pleasure. — RT

Beyond Hurricane Hype:

A Reality Check

Hurricane Irma Comes 7th In List Of Landfalling U.S. Hurricanes

While this won’t be of much comfort for those that are squarely in it’s path right now, it is a small bit of good news. Dr. Philip Klotzbach has compiled rankings of both hurricane Irma and Harvey when they made landfall. Compared to the 1935 Labor Day storm, Irma is a distant 7th, tied with the 1928 Lake Okeechobee storm. –Anthony Watts, Watts Up With That, 10 September 2017

I went looking for the freshest image of Irma. NOAA posted this geocolour image of Hurricanes Irma and Jose from GOES-16 “on the evening” of September 9, 2017. Since I’m posting it about 3.00 pm Sunday, NZT, current Florida time is 11.00 pm Saturday, and evening might be, say, 6.00 pm to 9.00 pm, it sounds as though the pic was snapped up to about five hours previously. Continue Reading →

The Global Warming Policy Foundation is chaired by Lord Lawson and managed by Dr Benny Peiser, a man of seemingly boundless energy. They have a long list of scientists and other experts to call on for advice. The GWPF newsletter is a high-quality round-up of the mos significant climate-related news and a dependable source of scientific information with informed, level-headed analysis on a range of climate change topics covering science, policy, energy and economics.

Like many readers, I find the GWPF newsletter tremendously informative and often read it from cover to cover. It deserves the widest possible distribution. Here is the latest edition: the longer extracts have been shortened but the links retained, including one where you can sign up for your own copy.

Republishing should introduce it to even more New Zealanders and encourage discussion. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. — RT

Pacific Ocean Cools Rapidly

La Nina Threatens Early Return

South Africa Set For Biggest Maize Crop Harvest On Record

Forecasts for an El Nino this winter have given way to the prospect of more La Nina-like conditions as sea surface temperatures in the central-eastern Pacific cool rapidly. Surface temperatures in the critical area of the Pacific have fallen to 0.2 degrees Celsius below average, down from 0.7 degrees above average in the week centred on June 28. The rapid cooling has forced meteorologists to reassess the outlook for the northern hemisphere winter. —John Kemp, Reuters, 5 September 2017

South Africa is set for its biggest maize crop harvest on record following improved weather conditions. At least 16.4 million tonnes of maize can be expected from the maize belt this season. Almost 60 percent of the yield will be white maize, which is the regional staple used for human consumption. —The South Africa, 1 September 2017

In 2015, a vicious El Niño weather pattern swept across southern Africa. When it intensified the following year, it caused severe droughts and threatened the food security of millions. But in 2017, that trend is set to reverse. South Africa is expecting a 15.63m tonne maize harvest, the highest yield of the crop ever. Now 85 percent of South Africa’s crop is genetically modified, with even Malawian and Zambian farmers taking up higher-yield seeds at a rapid rate. With the surplus, maize prices have dropped some 60 percent since last year. While this is good news for some consumers, for farmers it is making it hard to balance accounts. The solution: look to export the bumper crop. –Charlie Mitchell, This Is Africa, 27 June 2017

Only two years after The Revenge of Gaia

Climate change was so serious a threat, he told the Guardian in 2010, that democracy might have to be ‘put on hold’.

Within two years he’d had a remarkable change of heart. ‘All right, I made a mistake,’ he told the cable channel MSNBC. He still believed —and continues to believe — that manmade carbon dioxide is a problem that needs addressing. But we’ve plenty of time to do something about it before any dangerous effects are felt, and in any case, the cures being advanced by green zealots are often worse than the disease itself.

One of his main bugbears is biomass, such as the woodchips from old oak forests in the US, which are shipped across the Atlantic to be burned for electricity at the Drax power station: ‘This is one of the most monstrous examples of green absurdity that I know of. It’s wicked!’

Largest-ever recorded hurricane 6 Sep (NZT)

Hurricane Irma moved into the Caribbean yesterday, swallowing the outer islands, up to the Virgin Islands. Lined up ahead of it are the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba, with Florida out of the image just to the north.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that global methane emissions are responsible for more than 40 per cent of the total warming effect so far of all human activities. … Our livestock sector is making the concentration of methane in the atmosphere higher than it would be otherwise, and this results in the world becoming warmer than it would be otherwise.

Stupefying reversal after all the propaganda

The warmsters have been squawking at us since the IPCC was founded in 1988 for using abundant, affordable hydrocarbons to power engines and to create all kinds of materials, from the ordinary (like tar and ink) to the fantastical (like heart valves and aspirin). They demand we stop drilling anywhere, stop mining anywhere and stop creating affordable products to improve and save lives. But this is blinkered madness oozing from the dystopian IPCC stink-tank.Continue Reading →